that has helped the obama administration and the obama campaign define him and i think he pushed back against that with the humor. >> let me look forward and ask you, mark halperin, what do you anticipate coming up now? next week we've got the two vice presidents -- the vice president and his challenger paul ryan there and how about the town hall format for barack obama? the conventional wisdom has been because everybody has bill clinton in their mind that the democrat, president obama, will do better in the town hall relating and empathizing and showing he connects to people. i'm not so sure about this president. >> well, i'm not so sure, although both of them will be -- i think the strongest mitt romney has been in my experience as a presidential candidate on the debate the other night was the events he did in both cycles last campaign in 2008 and this one, his so-called ask mitt anything events where he did take questions from people. he showed humor and the kind of fluidness and personality that he showed in the depate ba in those events and people that think this format clearly f